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Thursday, March 17, 2011

Transgender behavior in Maryland

Greetings!

Please call Maryland House Delegates TODAY

Congratulations on helping to stop the redefinition of marriage in Maryland. Your calls and emails made the difference!!! But despite failing to redefine marriage, special interestsnow want to make you redefine Gender through Maryland House Bill 235 (HB235).

How extreme will the legislators go? The HB235 hearing was last Wednesday. Maryland Citizens for a Responsible Government (MCRG) has testified about the lawsuits, bathroom rapes (Montgomery College & Asbury Methodist Village) and Viewpoint discrimination occurring in Montgomery County after its Gender Identity bill was passed. Now we need your help again to pull Maryland legislators away from the influences of special interests and back to reality.

Click here for a list of talking points. Let them know that these Gender Identity bills are bad news and ask them to vote against the bill. With your help we were able to stop this radical bill last year. And we need to do it again.

Please also ask them to vote against HB285 which gives individuals a new "right to sue Public Accomodations" under the antidiscrimination law for "any percieved discrimination" (such as separating the bathrooms on the basis of gender).

The full committee vote on HB235 could be as early as this Friday or it may be later. Please forward this email and keep emailing and calling until we notify you.

The bill is being heard in the Health and Government Operations Committee.

Proponents are saying that they have removed "public accommodations" from the bill. You may remember this from MontgomeryCounty where we were assured that the bill would not affect safety in bathrooms, lockers and showers. We have reviewed the bill and it still contains accommodation and facility language. But with or without such language it will force Marylanders to deny reality and is a bad bill.

Click here for a list of exemptions that Governor O'Malley supported when he was Mayor of Baltimore and which were included in that city's Gender Identity law. Assuming that the legislators agree that it would be wrong "to force Marylanders to deny reality,"an infinite number of disclaimers would have to be placed in the proposed state Gender Identity Bill in order to secure the rights of individuals to simply be honest in their everyday lives.

These disclaimers would be absolutely necessary in order to protect Maryland constituents from viewpoint discrimination imposed by their own Government and would have to include items such as "it is not discriminatory for individuals to:

Use pronouns reflecting birth sex."

Suggest that life would be better for such individuals if they didn't transition and break up their own family."

State that taking hormones unnecessarily is dangerous and surgery can have complications."

Etc. etc."

The bill is flawed and uncorrectable because in America no one should be allowed to force "their definition of reality" on others. And at present, because of the power of special interests, we doubt that any disclaimers (protections for you) will be allowed in the bill.

In fact, in Montgomery County where a similar gender identity bill was passed over the wishes of the overwhelming majority of residents, we are currently disputing a recent ruling by the Montgomery County Ethics Commission which held that Marylanders are not credible witnesses if they fail to use what the Commission considers to be the correct pronouns in addressing a man as a woman. We believe that this governmental ruling is an example of viewpoint discrimination that will be imposed on all Marylanders by these defective Gender Identity laws.

To impose their viewpoint on the rest of us, the Ethics Commission had to totally ignore the ethics law. Section 19A-14(e) of the Montgomery County Ethics Code states that: A public employee must not intimidate, threaten, coerce or discriminate againstany person for the purpose of interfering with that person's freedom to engage in political activity. Yet Dana Beyer, a transgendered woman who helped draft MontgomeryCounty's gender identity law as an assistant to Councilmember Duchy Trachtenberg, bullied and threatened residents who were collecting signatures for a petition referendum to place the county's gender identity law on the ballot for a vote by the people.

Click here to watch the following seconds-long video, whereBeyer falsely tells petition collectors and would-be signers that they will be asked to leave a Giant food store, saying that "An email went out; you're going to be asked to leave. Any petitions gathered today are illegal."

This and other incriminating evidence of outright harassment and disruption of referendum activity were totally ignored by the Commission. This travesty of justice only continues the viewpoint discrimination emanating from MontgomeryCounty.

In MontgomeryCounty, Duchy Trachtenberg the chief sponsor of the Gender Identity bill was the only councilmember not re-elected. Ask legislators to not vote for HB235.

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Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) is a national non-profit organization committed to helping ex-gays and parents and friends of gays who want help, hope and community. PFOX exists to educate, support, and advocate for individuals and parents on the issue of same-sex attraction, and increase others’ understanding and acceptance of the ex-gay community.
To learn more about PFOX, visit our official website at www.pfox.org.